Perserverance

Current word count: 31,883

New words written: 1,622

Words til goal: 8,117 / 270 words a day til the end of September

For today’s whopping words written count, I’d like to thank our local Ford dealer service department. Our car needed a check-up, so I had to get up early to get to the dealership early enough to be first in line — or close to that — and wasn’t able to write before I went. However, I planned ahead, took my laptop, and despite the NFL commentators talking like they were powered by the Energizer bunny, I managed to write nearly a whole chapter in the three hours I waited before my computer battery ran out. So, thank you, Ford dealership. I’ve got three and a bit chapters left, and I love that my words a day goal is now less than 300. I’m still hoping I can whip this out in two weeks.

Yesterday, I spent time researching agents I had already identified as possibilities for my writing style, as per my goals for this week, which I posted yesterday, and started preparing the query letters I’m going to be sending off.

I’ve read over and over that perserverance is key to publishing success. And I believe that perserverance is really key to any success. There’s always a journey, and for some it’s longer than others. But no matter how long it takes, if we don’t perservere, we won’t make it.

This weekend as I browsed some blogs, I found a great example of that in a How I Found My Agent post on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. Billy Coffey, a non-fiction writer, relates how he submitted to his preferred agent, then after he got a rejection, he submitted to others. After he got more rejections and was advised that he needed a platform and following before he could be considered, he started writing a blog. Months later, a blog reader recommended he submit his book to her agent — his original preferred agent. Perserverance.

There are lots of stories like this one, and they have one single message: Don’t give up.

How’s your writing going?

Write On!